You are here:

Conceiving an army for the 21st century

Defence R&D Canada - Centre for Operational Research and Analysis, Ottawa ON (CAN)

Abstract

If military planners are to be systematic and rigorous in future planning, utility may be found in futures methodology. Indeed careful application of such methods can allow for investigation of the future and its implications in a manner that is both more systematic and rigorous than is likely to occur otherwise. This paper details two such methods and their application to Army 2040 – a project being conducted by the Directorate of Land Concepts and Designs (DLCD) aimed at investigating how Canada’s Army must evolve to maintain its effectiveness in the 2040 timeframe. Following a brief overview of the capability development process which the Army employs to prepare for the future, the paper describes the futuring, or foresight methods of Environmental Scanning and the Futures Wheel and their application in analysing seven key components of the future strategic environment. It then identifies twelve converging drivers which emerged from the analysis and describes the process by which identified trends and the second and third order effects they generate may be used to produce a number of alternative futures. The alternative futures depict a world the Army, and in turn the Canadian Forces (CF), must consider in order to maintain their relevance in the 2040 timeframe. An elaboration of one such framework – based on those trends ranked as particularly high in terms of the potential impacts they may produce as well as the degree of uncertainty that surrounds them (i.e. energ